'The Legacy Of The Bones' Review: Spanish thriller blends themes of religion and evil to visual perfection
Spoilers for 'The Legacy Of The Bones'
'The Legacy Of The Bones' ('Legado en los huesos') is a sequel to the 2017 movie 'The Invisible Guardian' and was initially released in Spain in October 2019. The Spanish thriller is based on a novel of the same name, the second part of 'The Baztan Trilogy', written by Dolores Redondo, who is also a screenwriter on this film. The sequel follows Amaia Salazar's (Marta Etura) return the Baztán valley to investigate suicides that have a jarring pattern. As Salazar, who is now pregnant and back in her role as a detective, takes the lead in this investigation, she has to also deal with the presence of her very disturbing mother. Part mystery, and extra parts creepy, we are taken into the word of conspiracy following the reveal of one eerie word, 'Tarttalo', left behind by the suicide victims in their prison cells.
The movie begins with a clip from the past, with daughters being taken away and witches burning. We are then flashed forward to the present where detective Salazar loses an inmate in a courtroom after he commits suicide. While the suicide seems to rarely shock most police officials, the letter the man had in his pocket for Salazar is what takes precedent and initiates an investigation four months down the line, after Salazar gave birth to her son Ibai. The letter has one word — Tarttalo.
After she is back, she is specifically asked to head a case by Padre Sarasola (Imanol Arias), a psychiatrist and Vatican attache for the defense of faith and an Opus Dei prelate in Rome. The case? Two attacks on the St Arizkun church where the perpetrators had left human bones on the altar. While this case takes a bit of a back burner, we are presented with more dead bodies.
Salazar, who is close to her tia (aunt) Engrasi (Itziar Aizpuru), decides to move into her grandmother's old house with her husband James Westford (Benn Northover) and son while working on the case. She finds out from her tia that the furniture in the house was sold by Rosario (Susi Sánchez), Salazar's mother after her grandmother's will was read. Everything was sold except for one piece of furniture — a baby's cot. While here, she tries to get to the bottom of the case and comes across a black and white picture of a cave filled with bones. When she gets there, and the lights were turned off — the word Tarttalo is written on the walls. Salazar realizes that the men are first killing their wives, cutting their wives' arms and then taking their own life. Right before they commit suicide, they write down the word Tarttalo. All of these cases also step from one place, Baztan. It is explained that Tarttalo is a bloodthirsty cyclops that devours Christians. "Someone forces them to kill, and then makes them kill themselves after signing their name, the arms are his trophies," Salazar says.
Her tia warns her that some forces have been unearthed. There are energies that were quiet for centuries, resting deep in valleys, that are now awake and want to come for her. Amid all this drama, Salazar gets a phone call informing her that her mother has stabbed a staff member in an institution that she resided in and wrote the word Tarttalo with the victim's blood. Padre Sarasola asked for her mother to be transferred to the University clinic and said that Rosario's case has interested them for a while. He has to stop her evil mission. Padre Sarasola is interested in the moment of abandonment that a person goes through while committing aberrant crimes. "We've moved away from God and the Church," he says.
With that Salazar has set foot into a case that has taken an eerily supernatural turn — how do you solve a case while being threatened by the presence of your own deranged mother?
Granted it's a long movie, but giving away too many spoilers would, in fact, ruin quite an interesting case. The film uses elements of witchcraft mixed with religious evil theories along with mortal dead bodies to deliver quite an excellent sequel to the 'The Invisible Guardian.' Some may find the constant back and forth along with the mixing of mysteries to be confusing, and maybe the movie could have been executed in a much more organized pattern, but since when does evil deliver organized wrath?
The movie, at two hours, seems to have quite an intense plot that ranges from the evils of humanity to the evils of religions past. It is an exciting and demented case that seems to have reflected the novel quite well, but there is something rather interesting and appealing to have it seen acted out on the screen. The vile plot is jarring and could have been shortened in our opinion, but the delivery of direction was impactful to say in the least. Bringing in the supernatural aspect while exploring the "very essence of evil" and tying to a cyclops that is out for the blood of Christians, made the movie more horror than a thriller. The jump scares are credited to the witches that were burned in the past, and how people from that day and age believe in the power of dark forces — some good, and some bad.
Whether or not you've read the novel, if you got the thrill in watching movies such as 'The Conjuring' and 'Insidious,' this movie may be the one for you. It has the aspects of mortal murders tied to forces that have been dug up from the past — they are free now, and when free they cause even havoc to be noticed by the mortal world above them.
'The Legacy Of The Bones' and 'The Invisible Guardian' are available to stream on Netflix.